The Hunted

by Reagan Woods

  “I used the healing wand on your forehead but wasn’t in a position to use it on myself,” he explained gruffly. “Stay quiet and keep your lights off,” he warned.

  Moving with obvious deliberation, he fitted his own respirator over his nose and mouth. Through the clear, flexible material, she saw the teeth sink into his skin and anchor in place. He gestured that she should do the same.

  Left with few options, Francesca reattached her own respirator and carefully slid off Silex’s lap.

  His movements uncharacteristically slow, he grabbed the supporting ropes and used them to pull his legs beneath him in a crouch. His good arm wrapped around her and he stood, thrusting her up onto the broken concrete blocks.

  Fran had always known Silex was strong, but over-head pressing her whole body with one hand while injured made her think she might have underestimated his strength. He wasn’t as big as some of the other aliens, but he wasn’t petite by any stretch of the imagination.

  A quick look around didn’t reveal much. The ground was a sea of shadows as the only light came from Silex’s helmet. She bit back a groan, her body protesting as she angled an arm back to pull an old shake light from her pack. Holding the few ounces of cold plastic made her feel more in control – even if she wouldn’t defy him and turn the light on just yet.

  Silex’s streaky alien hands came up to span the thick foundation blocks and then he was pulling himself out of the pit. Panting, he emerged and balanced on the low wall beside her. He efficiently collected the hammock. Stowed it in his pack.

  Close study of his hard face hinted at the pain he tried to mask. She’d intended to ditch him tonight. Now, she wasn’t sure that was the best course of action.

  Leave. Go now, she told herself vehemently.

  It wasn’t pity that made her want to stay with him, she assured herself. Nor was it some misplaced feeling of guilt or loyalty. No. She needed to get the lay of the land, to understand what was happening before she rushed in where angels feared to tread.

  In truth, she wasn’t feeling so hot herself. A day, maybe two, of rest and recuperation might be in order. Then, she could return, find a way to sneak into the alien camp, locate GoGo and get out.

  Chapter 5

  Silex experienced a muddled stew of shock, pleasure and suspicion when he emerged from the pit and found Francesca waiting obediently on the ruined foundation. He’d been mentally preparing himself to chase her down. Again.

  Cautiously, he lowered himself to the ground before extending a hand to assist her down.

  They packed away their respirators in silence once they’d picked across the debris to a clear patch of ground. A quick adjustment to the torch built into his helmet changed the light from a piercing beam to an ambient glow.

  There was much to be done. But his energy flagged, and his body ached. Years as a Warrior had taken a toll. It was with mixed regret and relief that he dug a pain/stim combo from his pack. He needed to alleviate the pain, but he hated to raid his supplies when his mission had taken on such a drastically different complexion.

  “What’s that?” Francesca peered curiously over as he rolled his sleeve up and laid the pressure syringe over his vein.

  “Something for the pain and to keep me awake,” he answered gruffly as the potent drugs began to work. He felt the tension in his muscles ease, the throbbing aches and sharp pains faded to tolerable levels. A fresh punch of energy washed up his spine. “We need to move away from here.”

  “It’s a rough hike, but there’s a canyon on the other side of that mountain pass,” she pointed into the gloom. “If we can get to what’s left of the old highway, follow it down, we should get there before day breaks.”

  “Lead the way.” He saw the slight narrowing of her pretty dark eyes, recognized it as suspicion. Speculation. “What?”

  She held up a little cylinder, shook it awkwardly a few times. “I need to turn on my light, first.”

  He sighed and pulled off his combat helmet. Sat it carefully on her injured head. “Use mine. Let’s keep it on the ambient setting. It’ll be harder to detect at a distance.”

  The helmet slid over her ratty braid, far too big for her. Instead of complaining, she steadied it at a jaunty angle. After a long, considering look she spun and began walking. “Keep up! We’ll have to go over and through this rubble. If we stay on the streets, we’ll be too easy to spot, and we already left a trail of blood to the pit that a blind man could follow.”

  She wasn’t wrong. They’d bled heavily but the drones hadn’t picked up the trail in the fading dusk. Come daylight, the stains would be impossible to miss.

  Falling into step, he let her take the lead without question. He’d trailed her long enough to have unwavering faith in her ability to get them from point A to point B. He also harbored the strong suspicion that she would carry on without him if he didn’t stay close.

  The terrain was brutal, Francesca hadn’t exaggerated. However, when he put his big feet directly in her footsteps, the rocks and rubble didn’t crumble and slide beneath him – or not as much. She had good instincts. His grudging admiration for her survival skills notched up toward awe as he watched her plot her course and move nimbly through the wreckage of the sprawling nighttime cityscape.

  Ever vigilant, he kept tabs on their surroundings. Watching for a shadow was second nature. He was disturbed and relieved that he detected no tail. Neerum’s Warrior contingent shouldn’t have attemptedan assassination on one of their own, certainly. But it was protocol to monitor even if you were certain your enemy had been destroyed.

  They eventually came to a sheer cliff face. Immediately, Francesca began testing the fractured rock for handholds.

  “I don’t know what kind of condition the highway is in, but this is the shortest route up,” she whispered. “The entrance ramp has crumbled badly.”

  He studied her drooping form skeptically. “We should probably treat your head again,” he murmured. “It’s got to hurt.”

  Cooperatively, she shrugged off her pack and perched her small bottom on it. “Alright, let’s do this.”

  He pulled out the small healing wand and crouched in front of her. Activating the wand, he methodically traced the air just above her head wound. The color of the light showed a steady purple which meant she was operating with a major concussion, possibly damage to her skull. How was she even on her feet?

  “You know you’re seriously injured,” he commented, watching her eyes. It was there, in the steady gaze, that he saw confirmation of his assessment. “Yet, you haven’t complained once.”

  “You’re banged up, yourself,” she replied. “I don’t hear you bitching.”

  “I took a pain mitigating agent,” he reminded. “I’m sorry I didn’t stock Earther doses in my pack before I left.”

  “I did,” she admitted. “But I’m not there yet. It’ll knock me on my ass…”

  He nodded in understanding. “Better to wait, then. Do you have water?”

  At her slight nod, he backed away to replace the wand in his pack. Over his shoulder, he advised, “Try to drink a little. Please.”

  She sighed and pulled a canteen from her own pack. “Alright, Nurse Nancy. Let’s keep moving.”

  Stone-faced, Silex slung his pack over his shoulders, but inside, he was smiling. Hearing her smart mouth lightened his mood considerably. He wasn’t sure what that said about him and didn’t really care.

  When they finally reached the remains of the ruined highway, a somewhat direct path through the mountains, Silex asked quietly, “What’s going on Francesca?”

  Walking slightly behind, he saw her back stiffen, her shoulders straighten. “I don’t know what you mean.” She didn’t look at him. Instead, she turned her face to the distantly setting moon.

  “What are you doing out here?” He pressed, reaching out a hand to steady her when she stumbled on the deeply fissured pavement. “What was the purpose of leaving Texas?”

  Firmly, she pulled away from his grip. Her p
ace quickened, and she pulled ahead once more. “Maybe I just want to be free.”

  “Maybe,” he grunted under his breath. “But I don’t think that’s it.”

  Chapter 6

  Calm. Francesca reminded herself for the umpteenth time since she’d woken in the nasty seepage well. Silex could be useful.

  She stomped away from him. It was imperative she show no weakness, and right now, she was feeling weak. The fear that she’d left Margot to fend for herself for too long circled in her head. These stupid fucking aliens.

  First, she’d been caught flat-footed by the invasion. That never should have happened. Ill-got information was her business, damnit.

  Fran had stashed GoGo, her sweet, much younger sister at Old Fort Angeles with a friend and traipsed off to run a mission. And, in truth, she’d stopped to sell some information on the side and gotten caught up. Next thing she knew, there were aliens crawling all the hell over the place.

  She cleaned herself up and sauntered into the nearest alien camp once she realized resistance was deadly. Death and danger didn’t much bother her, but the alien Collection Teams kept cutting her off before she could make it across the country and back to GoGo. GoGo in danger or dead bothered her more than words could say.

  Initially, Dorit, the self-absorbed Doranos running the West Texas Work Camp, aka Camp Three, passed her information in exchange for sexual favors. That had come to a screeching halt as soon as Warrior Silex rolled into camp. Instead of shrugging off Silex’s warnings to stay away from Francesca, Dorit had backed off. That made data gathering and planning her escape difficult to say the least.

  For that alone, Francesca had loathed Silex from day one. Who did he think he was to dictate how she traded for her information? She had to work with what was available to her in that limited setting. He didn’t care one whit that she had her own agenda, or that she could and would stand for herself.

  Then, there was the inconvenient reality that the hate she felt was compounded by the fact that her body very definitely did not loathe Silex. To put it succinctly, he turned her crank.

  There were rumors of medical reasons behind the inexplicable attraction some Earthers felt for the conquering aliens. Pheromones. Latent receptors. Insufficient exposure to mating males. None of that meant dick to Fran. No, she was more obsessed with Silex and his, well, his dick than she should have been.

  At the start, he’d been amenable to a quick tug or finger bang here and there. It was crude and rude and just plain nasty. They weren’t each other’s true love or any romantic fiction. Then, he’d caught the tail end of her begging Dorit to find out which camp her sister was at. She would do anything – anything – to make certain GoGo was alright. Silex had heard her offer or at least part of it. How much, she couldn’t be certain, but it had been blatant enough to piss him off. Royally.

  Their game changed. He changed.

  And then the break she’d been waiting for came in the form of a raid or rebellion in the camp. She walked through that open door, killed the alien who tried to grab her. He couldn’t – she wouldn’t allow him to stand between her and GoGo. She travelled as fast as humanly possible toward the LA Camp, her sister and what remained of home.

  Fran couldn’t have been more done with that place and those aliens than if she’d doused it all in kerosene and dropped a match on her way out the door. The younger Earth women that she’d been friendly with? She’d miss them. But they weren’t family. GoGo was family. Her only family.

  If pangs of guilt wracked her from time to time whenever she thought of Camp Three and the pissed off Warrior she’d left behind, she crushed them beneath her boots. There was no place for self-doubt in this hard, hard world. She’d done what she had to do.

  Sighing, Fran gingerly rubbed her aching forehead and slowed her pace. They were close to the old gold mine and the little lake where she and her mother and father had camped when she was young. Those were the days before civil unrest turned into civil war. GoGo wouldn’t be born for a few years after their final camping trip to Golden Gorge.

  Never in her wildest dreams did she think she’d be bringing her alien ex-kind-of-boyfriend here. What a clusterfuck.

  “Francesca, are you well?” Silex’s deep voice carried clearly on the cool air as he closed the distance between them.

  “We’re getting close. There should be a safe place to sleep and there’s a possibility of finding water that’s only mildly radioactive,” she said with patently false enthusiasm. Unlike other aliens, Silex had a complete grasp of sarcasm and slang. He spoke asshole in any language. It was one of the few things she genuinely liked about him.

  “That’s good news,” he agreed, a smirk in his voice. “It’s nearly sunrise and you’re looking rather…wilted.”

  “Shut up,” she grumbled without heat. He wasn’t telling her anything she didn’t already know. “You’re not exactly looking like Prince Charming yourself.”

  In fact, he looked like hell. Blisters rioted across his nose and cheekbones, the skin bubbling and peeling in a way that spoke of pending rot. His thick eyebrows were nothing more than shiny patches presided over by more blisters. He’d been wearing his goggles when the explosion hit, so the skin around his eyes looked bruised but wasn’t burnt. Fran had a feeling she looked just as rough.

  Removing Silex’s lighted helmet, she passed it to him. The dark was slowly giving way to another day. She could see well enough without the extra light.

  He snorted as he stored the helmet. “Your fairytale Prince Charming was a pussy.”

  It was her turn to snort. “Read a lot of fairytales, have you?”

  “The one where he slays the dragon is pretty good,” he stated, a challenging note in his gruff voice.

  “Yeah, if dragons were real, it’d be a decent story,” she agreed with an eye roll. “They’re just as fanciful as a man who fixes all your problems.”

  “No male can fix everything wrong with a female, but dragons are real,” he stated in that I’m a Superior Alien and I Know All tone that drove her crazy. “It’s clear from the folklore that your planet used to have them, too.”

  “Dinosaurs, maybe,” she allowed, not really wanting to argue about mythical creatures – man or beast. Normally, she’d fight about whatever he liked. Right now, though, she simply wanted to rest. To heal.

  “We can hike into a small gorge from here.” She pointed to the remnants of the access road she’d been looking for.

  He pursed his mouth speculatively as he studied the route she indicated. “How far is it?”

  She shrugged, wincing as the movement caused more pain in her head. “A few miles.”

  “Will you be able to make it?” Instead of ridicule, his voice held concern.

  Squaring her shoulders and firming her resolve, she answered, “I don’t see where there is a choice. Let’s go.”

  Chapter 7

  The “road” that Francesca followed was washed out. They were working their way down the gully left behind after the road slid and crumbled out of existence.

  “What happened here?” Silex asked it more to gauge her ability to converse than because he was interested. It was clear she wasn’t as steady on her feet as she wanted him to believe. Until she admitted she needed help, there wasn’t much he could do. That’s what he told himself as he watched her steps slide, her feet scrape over the dangerous ground.

  Panting, she answered, “The wild fires were raging while the fighting escalated. The Santa Anna winds picked up and we were sure no one would make it out of LA alive – thought we’d die in the fires or the fighting. Then, the rains came. It was a deluge. It helped put out the fires and made it too miserable to fight, but the mud slides…it wasn’t pretty.”

  “When did all this happen?” He picked his way to a relatively flat spot and waited for her to stop. The history of the area wasn’t of any interest, not really, but if he needed to feign interest to give her a chance to stop and rest, to save face, then that’s what he would do
.

  In the early morning sunlight, her face was a mass of bruises beneath the dirt. She looked more like a sweaty, walking corpse than a living being. Pity stirred in his chest and Silex locked it down ruthlessly. He could be considerate, but he had to draw the line there. She wasn’t someone to become infatuated with – not again. Not after he’d seen her in action. Francesca was a dangerous female.

  Francesca stopped, pulled her canteen from her pack and sipped. “About fifteen years back.”

  “That’s a long time ago,” he observed, digging out his own hydration. “I take it you have history in this area, then?”

  “Obviously.” Her eyes slid away, and she busily dug through her bag as she stowed her canteen. “If the cave is still here, it’ll be up on that part of the canyon wall.” She shrugged her pack on again and pointed to a shadowy portion of the rock cliff. “There used to be a narrow path up, but I’m thinking it went the way of the road.”

  In silence, Silex pulled out his field glasses and focused in on the spot she indicated. “It’s still there. I can’t see how deep the cave is, but I see the mouth. Er – there won’t be anything living up there, right?”

  “It’s not much, and I’m sure we can chase out any animal that’s living up there,” she told him. “It’s big enough to sleep in and will keep us pretty close to water. I like it because it’s up high enough that we can see if anything – or anyone - approaches.”

  The flat area where they rested was roughly six feet in diameter and covered in crumbled rock and dried mud. Behind them, the wash rose steeply back toward the highway. Ahead, there was another abrupt drop before they reached the base of the gorge where they’d need to start climbing.

  “We need shelter, but that’s quite a climb.” He couldn’t carry her. There was no doubt he could make it on his own, but he didn’t trust his busted shoulder to haul them both safely up the cliff. Just because he couldn’t feel the pain right now didn’t mean the joint was stable enough to risk their lives on.